4 1/2 stars

Stage 41, La Cité francophone

The dark arts: here’s a marvellous little show where masks come to life and magically seem to change expression.

In Grim and Fischer, the characters are actors’ bodies topped by outsized carved masks. This poignant/funny and wordless little black comedy from the Portland, duo Wonderheads, which played the Fringe a couple of summers ago, is a fable in which Death comes to claim an old woman, a routine call, and is unexpectedly foiled. A cold-eyed, grey-faced enforcer in black top coat, Grim, Mr. Reaper himself, gets a magnificent entrance: the Mozart Requiem plus a chilling blast of wind. Clearly unused to resistance from the elderly, he is piqued, then exasperated by the subversive streak in Mrs. Fischer, a wistful, fragile-looking old party with a quizzical tilt to her head and bemused eyebrows.

She’s been practising her evasionary tactics on Nurse Doug. And when Grim tries to serve the usual fatal summons on her, she unleashes a surprising Ninja resilience. When all else fails, Mrs. Fishcer uses her ultimate weapon: memory. We see an empty sports jacket; her music box plays a waltz. And the cartoon graveside struggle between Grim and Fischer, which includes comic chase and action sequences, evolves into something else, a danse macabre full of regret and something a little bit like romance.

It’s a captivating little play, brought to life in tiny physical gestures: a head turns inclined, a hand flicks, a knee dips, a shoulder slumps. The performances from Kate Braidwood and Andrew Phoenix are detailed and eloquent. The former has the careful flat-footed walk of the perpetually stiffening; there’s a whole narrative attached to the way Fischer enters and exits a chair. It’s in minute physical adjustments that a flicker of doubt, then empathy, seems to pass over Grim’s hawkish visage. Has Death perhaps fallen a little in love with his victim?

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